WHO IS PYTHAGORAS

 THE FAMOUS PYTHAGORAS OF SAMOS.

 Pythagoras of Samos was an ancient Ionian Greek philosopher who was born in 570BCE in Samos ancient Greece. He was based in The Western philosophy which is also known as the pre Socratic philosophy.

It was said that he is the first Man to call himself a philosopher.

He is the eponymous founder of Pythagoreanism. 

He was a political and religious teacher whose  teachings were well known in Magna Graecia.

His teachings later influenced the philosophies of Plato, Aristotle, and, through them, Western philosophy. 

FAMILY BACKGROUND

Parents; Pythais and Mnesarchus a gem-engraver on the island of Samos.

Children; Arignote, Damo, Mnesarchus more (not mentioned)

Siblings; Themistode, Tyrrchenus and Eunomus

INTERESTS AND DISCOVERIES OF PYTHAGORAS

Ethics

Mathematics

 Mysticism

Politics

Religion, Notable ideas,

 Communalism, where the initiates of his school of Pythagoreanism were sworn in secrecy and lived a communal lifestyle.

Mystisophicists, which was known as the transmigration of souls which states that every soul is immortal and upon death it enters to a new body.

Musica universalis, he devised the doctrine of Musica universalis which states that planets move according to mathematical equations and thus resonate to produce an inaudible symphony of Music.

 Attributed ideas,

 Five climatic zones, it is said that he was the first Man to devide the world into five climatic zones.

 Five regular solids,

Proportions

 Pythagorean theorem 

 Pythagorean tuning

 Sphericity of the Earth,

 Vegetarianism, where it is agreed by scholars that at around 530 BC, Pythagoras travelled to Croton in southern Italy, where he founded a school in which initiates were sworn to secrecy and lived a communal, ascetic lifestyle. This lifestyle included a number of dietary prohibitions, traditionally said to have included vegetarianism.

What were the Influences of Pythagoras?

Thales, Anaximander,  Pherecydes, Themistoclea, Orphism

Who were those people that were Influenced by Pythagoras?

Pythagoreanism

Xenophanes

Empedocles

Plato,  Pythagoras influenced Plato, whose dialogues, especially his Timaeus, exhibit Pythagorean teachings.. Pythagorean ideas on mathematical perfection also impacted ancient Greek art. His teachings underwent a major revival in the first century BC among Middle Platonists, coinciding with the rise of Neopythagoreanism.

Aristotle, the teaching most securely identified with Pythagoras.

Scientists, his philosophy had a major impact on scientists such as Nicolaus Copernicus, Johannes Kepler, and Isaac Newton.

 Pythagorean symbolism was used throughout early modern European esotericism, and his teachings as portrayed in Ovid's Metamorphoses influenced the modern vegetarian movement.

What was the argument that led to his death?

Following Croton's decisive victory over Sybaris in around 510 BC, Pythagoras's followers came into conflict with supporters of democracy and Pythagorean meeting houses were burned. Pythagoras may have been killed during this persecution, or escaped to Metapontum, where he eventually died in 490 BC aged at around 75 years of age.

Today's argument and debate about Pythagoras

Classical historians debate whether Pythagoras made these discoveries, and many of the accomplishments credited to him likely originated earlier or were made by his colleagues or successors. Some accounts mention that the philosophy associated with Pythagoras was related to mathematics and that numbers were important, but it is debated to what extent, if at all, he actually contributed to mathematics or natural philosophy.

Where's the Pythagoras's sculpture?

Marble bust of a man with a long, pointed beard, wearing a tainia, a kind of ancient Greek headcovering in this case resembling a turban. The face is somewhat gaunt and has prominent, but thin, eyebrows, which seem halfway fixed into a scowl. The ends of his mustache are long a trail halfway down the length of his beard to about where the bottom of his chin would be if we could see it. None of the hair on his head is visible, since it is completely covered by the tainia.

Bust of Pythagoras of Samos

Is in the Capitoline Museum in Rome.

          THE END

         By Mary Muthoni